Lloyd and Alice Wormald’s connection with the South Rhine Church was through the Rundles. Their daughter Maysie, married Jim Rundle who lived at Mount Crawford.
Lloyd Wormald was born at Kilkenny in Adelaide on 14 September 1888, one of eight children of Henry and Emily Wormald (nee Wellington). The family moved to Broken Hill where his father ran an iron foundry. He attended school in Broken Hill and then returned with his family to Adelaide in 1900. In 1903 he graduated from the SA School of Mines receiving a certificate in mining, metallurgy and engineering. He returned to Broken Hill where he obtained work as an engine fitter at the Central and Mine Power Plant and continued his studies at the Broken Hill Technical College.
While at this job Lloyd decided to go farming (or as he referred to it caught “land fever”) in partnership with his brother-in-law Harry Trevilyan who was married to his elder sister Annie. In 1911 they took up land in the Murray Mallee, at Caliph about 25 miles from Loxton. A year or two later he purchased his own land nearby (Section 4A in the Hundred of Mantung), which was to become the Wormald family farm. This land was adjacent to the Rundle property, with Silas and Wilfred Rundle arriving in the district a few months later. Along with Rundles and Trevilyans, Lloyd Wormald was one of the pioneers of this newly settled area. Lloyd found his engineering skills were useful on the farm in many ways including for sinking bores, erecting windmills and building galvanised iron tanks. Later with the coming of motor cars in the 1920s his engineering experience meant he knew where to look when there was trouble and how to fix it.
Lloyd was a good sportsman, and as a keen footballer played for various teams at Caliph, Veitch and Pata. He was also active in local affairs chairing the committee which built the Caliph Hall and was on the Loxton District Council, for 18 years.
Alice May was born and grew up on the family farm near Balaklava in 1889, one of 13 children of Richard and Christine May (nee Curnow). Her mother was a district midwife and was often called away at short notice. With four elder brothers Alice spent a great deal of time and hard work from quite a young age helping with the family and doing housework. When her brothers Robert, Will and George took up land at Pata, Alice along with her sisters stayed with her brothers for periods of time to keep house It was here that she met Lloyd Wormald whose farm was about 10 miles away. They were married in 1919.
Their son Ken was born in 1921 and daughter, Maysie in 1923. The children grew up on the farm and went to Caliph primary school. The 3,000-acre farm was primarily a cropping property but they also grazed sheep, had several house cows and a few pigs. Lloyd’s father who could turn his hand to most things built them a solid stone home of limestone.
The 1920s and 1930s were hard years in the Mallee area with unreliable rainfall and drought years in the lead up to the depression. The Wormalds and Rundles main advantage is that they had cleared land and developed their properties over the previous 20 years. But the work was hard with teams of horses and much manual work, lifting bags of wheat and superphosphate, building fences, sinking bores, stock work etc
Both Ken and Maysie returned to the farm after finishing school in the late 1930s. Maysie moved to Mount Crawford in 1945 when she married Jim Rundle and increasingly Ken took on more of the farm work. In the late 1950s Lloyd and Alice retired to Adelaide, living at Trinity Gardens. Ken now married himself took over the farm. Later the farm was to pass to Ken’s sons. This property has been in the Wormald family for over 100 years.
In their retirement years Lloyd and Alice made trips back to the farm at Caliph and also stayed with Jim and Maysie at Mount Crawford, attending South Rhine Church when there on Sundays. Towards the end of their lives in the late 1960s and early 1970s as their health declined they had more extended stays with Jim and Maysie and spells in hospital. Lloyd died in the Mount Pleasant hospital on 23 May 1970 at the age of 81and Alice on 18 July 1975 aged 86.
